it is a source of constant amazement to me that otherwise sensible people are persuaded to be skeptical...?

Question

... of evolution because of arguments of the quality of 'if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?'. how can this be? is there something terribly difficult to grasp about the branching pattern of evolution?

Answer 1

Let's forget the whole ape thing!

Can you explain the existence of the Neanderthals and why they are not mentioned in the Bible?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Answer 2

Even evolutionists say humans did not evolve from apes, at least not in the literal sense. "Humans and apes have a common anscestor, but we the parted ways a few milion years ago and went down a differnt evolotinary track." To take it a step further ... All marmals descended from rodent like creatures, very similer to rats. So I guess we should say we evolved from rats!

Edit: An observation based on the responses to this question ... There are many who seem convinced that all Christians are idiots. But when you meet the "rare" Christian who's clearly intelligent, you can only conclude that he was fooled into believing...by the idiots.

On the other hand, you think you arrived at your position because you are a free-thinker who rationally weighed the evidence, and then freely chose atheism over theism. YET, you also believe and evolution teaches, that your thinking and actions are nothing more than the FIXED reactions of the atoms in your brain that are governed by the Laws of Chemistry and Physics. The irony ...

Answer 3

My observation is that the ordinary members of creationist sects, whether AOG, JW, Baptist etc are ordinary decent people with little education. They are carefully misled by the leaders of their sects.

At one time I had a little blue book put out by the Watchtower crowd which purported to explain why evolution was not real. This book is very widely distributed and surprisingly is one of the most printed in the English speaking world. It started off by misrepresenting the theory of evolution and evolution itself. It also thoroughly confused the theory or evolution with evolution per se and repeated several of the usual chestnuts about the blind watchmaker and so forth. It ended like most creationist bumpf, by quoting extensively from scripture.

It was so riddled with errors that a written correction would be five or more times as long, boring as all get out and nobody would read it.

If you did not know anything much about the theory or evolution it is quite easy to see that you could be misled by this book. It is quite convincing, but the foundations of its arguments are flat wrong and some of the arguments have the classic logical errors like argumentum ad hominiem. But many people do not know that the foundations are wrong and would not recognise a logical error if one bit them on the - - -. The book obviously was prepared by people that were either mistaken, deluded or lying.

My reading of some of the leaders of the creationist movement including the ID people is that they are in the main smooth faced liars. There is ample documentary proof of this, dating from the 1970s if not before.

Frequently their "scientific" qualifications are minimal, a BSc in agricultural science in one case, though a few do have genuine PhDs from genuine universities.

Their theological qualifications are often minimal too. In one well known case the theological qualifications came from an institution which turned out to be an ordinary suburban house next door to a Baptist church.

At least this place had a physical reality. Others claim qualifications from non-existent institutions, or institutions which they themselves or their associates have set up and which exist only on paper. These are sometimes overseas or on the other side of the country and often have names similar to, but not quite the same as, real universities.

Get someone who lies convincingly and often in the name of religion and a crowd of not too well educated people who expect the truth from their pastors and you have the result we see.

Answer 4

Those people aren't encouraged to think about evolution. They're told its evil and if they 'believe' in it they'll burn in hell - thats powerful psychological manipulation for people who have already bought in to the other rubbish. I dont think evolution is hard to grasp, though may be slightly more complex than the child-like 'god did it' which is about the whole creationist argument they just really dont want to.

Take one example - how creationists are always going on about things like the eye evolving by chance - it couldnt happen - ok it couldnt - so? They have misunderstood evoution if they think its random. Mutation is random. Selection is not.

Answer 5

The problem is that people come into the discussion with beliefs that they can not question, ever, which leads to not being able to examine the facts with an open mind. I see a lot of parroting of so called creation scientists here. I can tell immediately that these people are not allowing themselves to think. Fundamentalism is not about strong belief in God, but just the opposite. Its putting a wall around beliefs that are weak to keep them from falling.

Answer 6

It's about what they want to believe, not the evidence. Conviction is not always founded on evidence, particularly when it is driven by emotionally founded cognitive constructs such as faith. This means that evidence and rational hypothesis can be easily discounted in the face of a preferred belief.

Remember the Christian justification of this approach: that faith is a gift given by God to a select few. (The "many are called but few are chosen'' argument.) In the face of thinking like that, reason can be easily discounted as being erroneous thinking because the intellectual framework it attacks essentially is circular in its logic.

Answer 7

Human did not evolve from apes, but for the rest you are right. The answer to this is indoctrination. When people are telling you the same thing everyday from childhood to maturity, you get to believe it if it isn't in your personality to be skeptical.

Answer 8

Yes that is amazing. Eventhough we did not evolve from apes, those same people do not see that there are 20+ different forms of apes.

Answer 9

The key to understanding this lies in the fact that only about 10% of the population of the USA is capable of critical thinking... or even knows what critical thinking IS. There is an INDUSTRY (Christianity) whose BUSINESS it is to create whole generations of adults who are, at once, gullibile, irrational, willfully ignorant, self-deluded, intellectually dishonest, droolingly stupid and hypocritical... and willing to tithe 10% for the privledge of having their cognitive dissonance held in check through regular doses of pious and holy bullshit.

Religious 'shepherds' KNOW that their 'flock' (sheeple) are scientifically ignorant and incapable of critical thinking... because they've been PROGRAMMED to be ignorant. They KNOW that they are suspicious of 'scientific' sources , and find them to be intimidating and incomprehensible... because they've been CONDITIONED to distrust them. These puppet-masters KNOW that their flock (victims) will seek their 'knowledge' from 'trusted' sources... the very-same puppet-masters. When the sheeple hear things like 'scientists claim that humans and apes shared a common ancestor, in the distant past', they experience 'cognitive dissonance'... this information is in conflict with the 'truth' that they have believed for their whole lives. So... where do they go to resolve this cognitive dissonance?... Scientists?... NO! They go to their 'trusted' sources... the sources who KNOW that they have been taught WHAT to think... they have not been taught HOW to think. Sources who KNOW that they can lie, obfuscate, misrepresent with impunity... with absolutely NO RISK that their minions will seek out independent, peer-reviewed corroborating information.

They do their jobs very well indeed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xkdkq_pp...

The people that you are referring to are a particular subset of victims of this massive scam/brainwashing operation... about 50% or our population. Another 35% are ALSO victims of the scam/brainwashing... but not QUITE so deluded as the other 50%.

All told, about 85% of the population of the USA is bug-nuts... insanity is 'normal'... reason, rationality and critical thinking are 'abnormal'... and the lunatics are running the asylum.

I hope that helps.

“Anyone who cares about the fate of civilization would do well to recognize that the combination of great power and great stupidity is simply terrifying, even to one’s friends.” ~ Sam Harris

"The mind is a terrible thing." ~ Bill Nelson
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Answer 10

Look how long it took some theists to accept the heliocentric model of our solar system. Let's hope that it doesn't take as long for evolution to be accepted as fact.